To answer this question, moved to one cloud ERP that enabled a unified, intelligent enterprise while reducing complexity and empowering people.

Starting point at Daikin

At the forefront of the story was the goal of being the global leader in the HVAC industry. As a result, Daikin pioneered groundbreaking technologies that revolutionized commercial AC. With a of over 100 years of engineering, the company has grown to operate globally in . However, its journey to global recognition was peppered with growing pains.

Disconnected systems led to complexity

Years of rapid growth alongside acquisitions left the company with a legacy ERP that was fragmented, inconsistent, and lacked the standardization required to operate efficiently. Multiple disconnected systems and workflows meant that employees were dealing with a myriad of processes, all differing depending on which business unit they were working with. This increase in manual work and confusion around processes added avoidable complexity to day-to-day tasks, as employees spent more time than necessary solving for problems.

Together, EY and 麻豆原创 teams worked toward an end goal by posing the question: how do we simplify operations, empower employees, and drive customer experience? Daikin鈥檚 industry is unique, with highly distributed networks and complex supply chains. Companies operating in this environment must continuously adapt to industry standards and regulations, all while delivering the reliable product experience they鈥檙e known for. Daikin turned to EY and 麻豆原创 because the company needed a partnership that understood the nuances of the industry within which it operates.

Daikin鈥檚 focus from the beginning was on the people who would be impacted most by this transformation and ensuring that their everyday experience evolved into one that is simpler, consistent, and productive. With AI at the core, Daikin can look to the future and see one unified system where AI moves beyond isolated cases and becomes embedded end-to-end.

To achieve this vision, Daikin established 麻豆原创 Cloud ERP as its digital core and single source of truth. Going live in just 10 months, modernized finance, logistics, procurement, and sales workflows for more than 300 frontline users, demonstrating early results of 10% improved counter efficiency and a 20% faster financial close.

EY鈥檚 industry expertise paired with 麻豆原创 technology helped ensure that the people who use the technology every day no longer log-in to multiple systems and customers get the right product at the right time and price.

Employees gained single-screen experiences, faster access to information, reduced manual effort, simplified training and onboarding, and more confidence in decision-making. Dealers gained better visibility, faster onboarding experiences, and more consistent service interactions.

Journey to an Autonomous Enterprise

Now, Daikin doesn鈥檛 have to worry about which inefficiencies it will have to confront for an approaching launch.

The early results demonstrate what鈥檚 possible when AI-driven insights are paired with human-centered delivery: improved efficiency, faster financial close, better data governance, enhanced forecasting and operational decision making, and accelerated delivery using AI-assisted implementation capabilities.

This not only empowers end users but creates a scalable foundation that can grow alongside Daikin. With over 400 branches worldwide, EY and 麻豆原创 created a blueprint for Daikin鈥檚 global transformation with future automation and intelligent decision-making in mind.

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Tara Milosavljevic is a Partner Marketing manager at 麻豆原创.

has long used frustration-free, quiz-style games to create these connection moments for people living with Alzheimer鈥檚 and dementia. Now, with help from 麻豆原创 and , the organization is exploring how AI can personalize its games at scale.

鈥淲hat we saw, as AI was coming in, was that we could take two or three more steps to really personalize the experience and trigger positive memories for each individual,鈥� Bruce Elliott, CEO and cofounder of Memory Lane Games, says. 鈥淏ut, as a six-person startup on the Isle of Man, a little island in the middle of the Irish Sea, it was a daunting task. We had a brilliant vision, but to bring it together we needed support.鈥�

Collaboration for good

Through the MovingWorlds鈥� platform, Memory Lane Games collaborated with 麻豆原创 and EY to move beyond generic reminiscence content, creating an AI prototype that is designed to help transform personal details, family photos, and life experiences into memory games.

This project was part of , a MovingWorlds cooperation between 麻豆原创, EY, and Microsoft that provides social enterprises鈥攖hat often have limited resources, complex technical needs, and a lack of access to partners鈥攚ith strategic coaching, pro-bono consulting, expert-led workshops, and access to a global partner ecosystem at no cost.

For employees at companies like 麻豆原创 and EY, these engagements are equally transformative. Real-world problem-solving with social enterprises is among the most effective forms of experiential learning, helping to develop skills that benefit both the individual and the organization.

Through this program, Memory Lane Games gained access to the technical support needed to explore how generative AI could deepen personalization in its games. To start, the project team鈥擶ade Tsai, global client technology architecture leader at EY, and 麻豆原创 developers Robin Baeurle and Michael Zadikowitsch鈥攍ooked at what the organization had done in the past and how it could be transformed by generative AI. The intersection of personalization and images was where the team landed.

Turning memories into personalized games

The foundation of the project team鈥檚 prototype is a persona profile that the AI can reference. A caregiver or loved one creates a profile for the person living with dementia with basic information like age bracket, gender, first language, places they鈥檝e lived, what they did for work, and cultural background as well as other details like past vacations, favorite foods, hobbies, pets, and more. The goal is to capture the culture of the individual, not personal data. Using that persona profile, the AI suggests topics and then generates games by pulling in open-source images and writing multiple-choice questions.

For example, a demo of the Memory Lane Games prototype showed the creation of a persona profile of a 75-to-80-year-old woman who lived in Savannah, Georgia, was an elementary school teacher for 35 years, vacationed on Hilton Head Island and in the Blue Ridge Mountains, had a tabby cat named Magnolia, and enjoys Motown and soul music, gardening, birdwatching, and cooking Southern classics like pecan pie and shrimp and grits. The AI prototype generated several games for her: Savannah鈥檚 Historic Squares, Blue Ridge Mountain Getaways, Savannah鈥檚 Southern Kitchen Favorites, and Magnolia the Cat and Backyard Birds.

鈥淎t the start, we didn鈥檛 know how to solve this problem of extracting metadata from images, or even how to collect images, where to find them, and how to create these games,鈥� Zadikowitsch says. 鈥淎nd then we started experimenting and trying things out鈥攇enerating questions and then finding images, which didn鈥檛 work well, then finding images and then generating questions, which worked better.鈥�

The prototype is currently in the testing stages. Once it is deployed, there is the possibility to expand game personalization with photos submitted by a caregiver or loved one.

Tsai explains that current AI models can identify objects in images, but directing them to extract metadata and EXIF data, which contains the exact date, timestamp, and GPS coordinates indicating when and where the photo was taken, can take it a step further.

The layers of information stored within a photo file can be a treasure trove for Memory Lane Games鈥� AI prototype. 鈥淲e can use that information as a hint to extrapolate what else we can pull from the surroundings that could help reshape that memory experience,鈥� Tsai says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going beyond where that photo is taken.鈥�

AI with tangible human impact, not just productivity gains

While the AI prototype helps Memory Lane Games create personalized games more efficiently, its greater promise is human: helping people living with dementia and loved ones connect through joyful memories.

鈥淥ften in the context of AI, the typical audience is people working at other companies, not, for example, people with dementia,鈥� Baeurle says. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of potential that goes to waste in not realizing that these audiences can also benefit from digital solutions and, specifically, AI-powered solutions.鈥�

For the project team, that human outcome was the guiding principle. 鈥淲hatever we build, it should spark joy,鈥� Baeurle adds.

鈥淐aregivers are really busy. Family members are really busy. Care staff in care homes are very busy. If we can take one photo from a family and a couple lines of text and create six to 10 questions that can really pull out all of those memories, trigger a positive memory, and start those wonderful stories鈥攖hat鈥檚 what [this collaboration] has been able to help us deliver,鈥� Elliott says.

AI makes it possible to create memory games not only about a city, but about a neighborhood, a local landmark, or another detail closely tied to someone鈥檚 life. The more personal the prompt, the more likely it is to encourage conversation and connection.

鈥淲e know that social isolation is one of the top modifiable risks for dementia in older age, so the more we can get people talking and those neurons firing, just by letting them talk about something they want to talk about, is powerful,鈥� Elliott says.

The future of AI-enabled memory care

What this collaboration between Memory Lane Games, 麻豆原创, EY, and MovingWorlds showed is that AI has a place in memory care. 鈥淭he team demonstrated that AI can help create engaging [memory] games. I think this was the goal,鈥� Zadikowitsch says.

Tsai attended the United Nation鈥檚 International Telecommunication Union (ITU) this summer, after winning the 鈥淎I for Good for Entrepreneurship鈥� category in EY鈥檚 inaugural AI for Impact Challenge with this Memory Lane Games project.

The project team is confident that this is just the beginning for AI-enhanced memory care and has already come up with more use cases: an AI companion optimized for dementia that runs on speech-based interfaces and emotional and voice intelligence, adding more languages since dementia patients often revert to their first language, and using generative AI to create images of places for which no photos exist.

鈥淲e鈥檝e always taken a very simple yet scalable approach. And this [project] has taken both of those: kept it simple for the user but made it infinitely scalable. And I think that鈥檚 where the real magic of AI is,鈥� Elliott says. 鈥淎I is the key to us scaling, and we needed this collective help, this collaboration, in order to test those interesting hypotheses. And we鈥檝e seen positive early results.鈥�

For Memory Lane Games, that magic is not technology for technology鈥檚 sake. It is the possibility of helping more people reconnect with the stories, places, and people that make life feel familiar and spark joy.

MovingWorlds has supported more than 3,000 successful projects across 110 countries, unlocking more than $50 million in pro-bono consulting expertise for social enterprises. If you are a social enterprise in need of skilled support in AI or another line of business, for support on the MovingWorlds’ platform. 

The tech team at took the company鈥檚 purpose 鈥� building a better working world 鈥� to heart. Supported by , a global initiative to positively impact 1 billion lives by 2030, the team made it their mission to use technology to help solve a problem: to connect countless refugees landing in Poland with the resources they need to survive. The result, the , was live within six urgent weeks.

Responding to a Need

“It was winter, and women and children were standing in long queues for necessities like milk, diapers, and blankets,” Diksha de Sousa, 麻豆原创 Core Tech at EY, recalled. “And we thought a platform can make this simpler. Resources were available 鈥� donations were streaming into NGOs working all over Poland 鈥� but organizations had no centralized database or way to share what they had available and where.鈥� So de Sousa鈥檚 team mobilized.

The development process would not be typical; this need was dire and immediate. It was about saving lives. When they reached out to other EY groups for support, the response, de Sousa said, 鈥渨as overwhelming. I think we had the UX design in three days.鈥� The EY development team worked at a breakneck pace to create the app while coordinating with NGOs on the ground in Poland and working with the marketing teams who would mobilize the app through the power of social media.

Harnessing New Technology to Deliver Impactful Solutions

鈥淲e needed automation, we needed workflow technology, and, last but not least, we needed the stable backend,鈥� so that the NGOs could upload all their data and ensure it would be stored safely, explained Oktavian Wagner, EY鈥檚 head of CT Innovation, Technology, and Architecture. And, since no one on the development team could write in Polish or Ukrainian, they also needed translation capabilities. 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP) was a natural fit, not only because EY was already running close to a thousand 麻豆原创 instances but also because, as Wagner explained, 鈥渨e share the same vision: using technology to create a better world.鈥�

With 麻豆原创 Build solutions, a low-code app development and automation portfolio, and with the support of 麻豆原创 Business Accelerator Hub, the EY team brought the new EY ERA from ideation to execution in record time. While the technology was crucial, Axel Janz, global head of 麻豆原创 Products and Innovations at EY, said having live, personal support from 麻豆原创 was invaluable. 鈥淎t the end of the day, the people make the difference,鈥� Janz said.

Also crucial to EY鈥檚 whirlwind development process was a laser focus on user experience. 鈥淵ou want to make sure that the application is stable, that it’s fast, that it’s scalable, that it’s safe, but also that it’s easy to use 鈥� concentrating on what we call the workflow of the end user,鈥� Wagner said. The end user in this case was refugees. 鈥淭hey don’t want to see a commercial. They don’t want to see what else we’re doing at EY. They don’t even want to see and touch the technology. They just want to use it.鈥�

A Targeted Tool with Global Potential

EY ERA has 162 registered humanitarian aid distribution centers in 53 cities in Poland and more than 15,000 users, refugees who can find the necessities they need to care for their families. The app鈥檚 impact is already reaching beyond the borders of Poland and the ongoing crisis for Ukrainian refugees. EY ERA has also been deployed in response to Australian wildfires and is ready to adapt to other natural disasters or humanitarian crises. Whatever the future brings, EY is committed to deploying new technology to serve people in need and to build a better working world for all of us.

Interested in more stories that feature organizations creating innovative solutions to make a positive impact? Check out:

• : Swiss independent organization Essen f眉r Alle (Food for All) is better supporting its commitment to address food insecurity and hunger with a scalable and efficient solution in the cloud from 麻豆原创.
• : EY created a digital platform for financial aid applications with 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform.

For the full episode and the on-demand Better Together: Customer Conversations series, visit .

Timo Elliott is VP and global innovation evangelist at 麻豆原创.